I am not so far removed from my college days as to not feel the twinge of nostalgia when the school year springs forth upon the scene. Not too long ago, I was but a humble senior presenting my research to a group of individuals, far better than myself, minds sharp with the critical thinking skills instilled in them by their professors. Those skills were put to good use that day as I raised many an eyebrow when I made a proclamation: Minus the rhetoric, Trump looks to be a pretty vanilla Republican.

I don’t think most people would describe Trump in any way as ‘vanilla,’ save perhaps for whatever natural skin tone is hiding behind that spray tan. I can’t blame them; Joe Biden has made a whole campaign out of returning to normalcy…vanilla, if you will. Yet, for all the heads that I saw scratched that day, I stuck to my guns, and time seems to have confirmed what I and others saw (how’s that for a humble brag?). For two recent reports on this, we could first consult our very own Dr. Smith, writing not a few days ago:

Most of Mr. Trump’s actions in office are well within the parameters of center-right American government. His approach to taxes, regulation, and the judiciary would have been carried out by most Republican presidents in the same position politically. Trump’s rhetoric is often undemocratic, especially when he floats the possibility of postponing the election, says Post Office funding is considered in light of its ability to handle mail-in ballots, or continually portrays the media as a public enemy. His actions don’t always follow through. That should not obviate the damage of the rhetoric, but words and deeds differ.

And then, as if on cue from Dr. Smith, Michael Barone writes in the Wall Street Journal recently:

Through all this change, the basic character, the DNA, of the Republican party has remained the same…The Republican Party has centered on a core constituency of people who are regarded by themselves and others as typical Americans, but who are not by themselves a majority of the electorate…

Trump Republicans’ downscale strength in 2016 was an amplification of a decades-long trend. The core constituency of the Republican Party has been moving downscale for decades, first in response to cultural issues like abortion…

This economically modest Republican Party is Mr. Trump’s party—for the moment. It isn’t about to sweep affluent suburbs as Reagan’s party did in the 1980’s, but it can win by carrying voters that Reagan and the Bushes never won…

That party is still around 166 years later. Don’t bet on its permanent decline.

Policy-wise, Trump’s biggest break from the Republican party of late seems to be on trade. Beyond that, the case for Trump being a political anomaly holds no water when taken from a policy perspective. But, of course, we know policy is not what makes Mr. Trump the Mr. Trump that he is. It’s his rhetoric. It’s his brashness. It’s his jokes. It’s his unfiltered, take-no-prisoners approach to rhetoric that plays out in some genuinely hilarious and well-timed moments and plenty of unnecessary and downright cruel moments.

It’s at times like these when I think back to a man little known to conservatives nowadays, but someone who really should be known: Richard Weaver. A man who passed before his time, Weaver birthed much of the modern conservative movement, generally in very positive ways (though anyone reading his books will notice glaring omissions in certain parts). Weaver’s specialty was rhetoric, and it bears noting his insights on rhetoric. What Weaver saw is what many conservatives miss nowadays, namely that rhetoric and dialectic (call them reason and emotion if you will) are complements, not opponents. As he said:

The complete man, then, is the “lover” added to the scientist; the rhetorician to the dialectician.

The Ethics of Rhetoric

And elsewhere:

Since we want not emancipation from impulse but clarification of impulse, the duty of rhetoric is to bring together action and understanding into a whole that is greater than scientific perception.

The Ethics of Rhetoric

For Weaver, Socrates was executed not merely because he sought to bring dialectic back to its proper place but because he threatened to end rhetoric altogether and so lose half of human perception (Socrates himself acknowledges that he could have done with an eloquent speech or two). In the same way that C.S. Lewis taught us that reality cannot be reduced down to merely material impulses, Weaver brought an understanding of rhetoric as unveiling a dimension of truths and a way of connecting with the human core only accessible via rhetoric. Nowadays, the complete man often seems split between fact-finders with nary a drop of personality and verbal warriors without any weapons. The complete man is a rare breed; it may not be a stretch to say only one has ever come to us. Yet ideals are still useful, so long as they are not improperly immanentized.

Were either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump to bring Weaver back from the grave to serve as an advisor, I rather suspect both would discover his casket rather thoroughly and circularly scuffed up. A wiser man, Andrew Klavan, has said on multiple occasions, “Facts don’t care about your feelings, but feelings are facts.” Conservatives would do well to remember this and not be so quick as to surrender rhetorical ground or relegate it as secondary. Not since Reagan have conservatives had a great national rhetorician, and Trump is not that great national rhetorician. In a way though, buried beneath the chaos of his words may lie a hidden blessing as we are forced to confront the role of rhetoric once again.

And when we do, to Weaver and his lot we shall hopefully go.